Caspar Kulenkampff may well have been describing the same mission when he wrote: ‘And then there is Göring, the Abteilung’s big gun, a master pilot. Recently he came back with fifty-nine hits on his machine.’²⁸

So it is no wonder that Göring was rewarded with a brand-new aeroplane of the latest type and some time off. On 7 April, he was informed that he would be assigned an AEG G.III (serial number G 54/15), equipped with two Mercedes 220-hp engines, which would give far better performance than the two Benz 150-hp engines²⁹ on his older AEG G.II aeroplane. And, as part of the process, he and Unteroffizier Röder were issued travel orders to proceed to the AEG factory in Hennigsdorf, a suburb of Berlin, which happened to be one of Göring’s favourite places.³⁰ Their mission in Berlin was to inspect the new aeroplane, but, with surface transportation being slow at that point in 1916, they were not able to return to Stenay until 17 April.³¹

Meanwhile, two days earlier, Göring was notified he had been awarded a rare distinction by the office of the Chef der Feldflugwesens [chief of field aviation]: a one-litre silver goblet to commemorate his role in the confirmed destruction of a French Farman on 16 November 1915. Simply called the Ehrenbecher [Goblet of Honour],³² over the next three years it was presented to all pilots, aviation observers and aerial gunners after they had shot down one enemy aeroplane. The goblet became another incentive for German flyers to go after and destroy their aerial opponents.